Al-Qaida in Iraq has been able to build a new cadre of leaders since the U.S. killed its founder, Abu Musab Zarqawi, and a number of his lieutenants last summer, a Defense Department spokesman said Thursday.
“It has been able to replace leaders,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero. “And we are very active in, almost nightly, going after these leaders and taking down this network. And whenever you do that, then more intelligence pops up as they try to react and adjust their network …. There are new leaders emerging, yes.”
His assessment came in a week in which suicide vest-bombers and car-bombers — al-Qaida’s signature weapons — struck targets in and around Baghdad. The explosions killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians in Shiite neighborhoods. The Sunni Muslim al-Qaida has a goal of igniting a sectarian civil war that will drive U.S. forces out of Iraq.
The string of bombings, which the U.S. says are mostly done by foreigners who enter through Syria, is a violent campaign to defeat the ongoing troop reinforcement, which is aimed at restoring security to Baghdad.
After a U.S. airstrike last June killed Zarqawi, military spokesmen talked of taking down his network with a series of follow-up raids that netted scores of operatives.
But the group appears to be as murderous today under the new leadership of Egyptian Abu Ayyub al-Masri and his replacement field commanders.
“They’re still effective,” Barbero said. “These vehicle-borne [improvised explosive devices], these high-profile attacks are their signature. And they’re capable of executing these. So they’re adaptive, ruthless and a thinking enemy, and we are staying on them all
the time.”
The U.S command hopes to secure Baghdad by the establishment of Joint Security Stations and of pedestrian-only markets to keep out suicide-car bombers. Al-Qaida terrorists watch these moves.
“We take action going after these networks, putting up these barriers, improving our security,” Barbero said. “They analyze it and they react.”
